This invention relates generally to feed control apparatus and more specifically relates to apparatus for minimizing the effects of inertia and mass problems in ribbon or sheet feeding devices. Such inertia and mass problems are a major source of non-uniform ribbon advance, for example, in high-speed magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) encoders, which are used in check processing systems employed by banks and other financial institutions.
Various types of braking apparatus have been employed in the past to control the speed at which ribbon or sheet material is unwound from a supply roll, and to thereby prevent overrunning of the ribbon or sheet due to the inertia of the supply roll after it has commenced moving. Optimum control of inertia effects while feeding ribbon or sheet material is thus helpful in maximizing the efficient operation of such feeding devices.